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Some Reader Comments/Initial Results of Book Survey

I have been taken aback by the comments so many of you have sent me and am suitably very humbled. To quote just a few of you:

Thank you Pete for a really excellent book – I only wish I had read it 20 years ago when I started investing. In a few hours reading your book today I learnt more than I have in the last 10 years of self-education. Monkey with a Pin is in the top few investment books I have read – the Losers Game- Index Investing for Dummies and Smarter Investing being the others. Thanks again and I hope you get the wide readership you deserve.

I thought the book was excellent and was pleased that it was so up to date. I have been investing in funds for nearly 20 years and have come to a similar conclusion as you regarding the charges.

Congratulations not only on the book – pulling together so much relevant detail in such a short period of time – but more importantly on exposing the scam which is the Financial Services Industry.

Excellent book, very informative as far as I have read but I have just skimmed the surface. What stands out a mile is the utter uselessness of a bunch of self serving highly paid fund ‘managers’. Their inability to organise a bevvy or two in a brewery springs to mind.

Congratulations on an instructive, well-researched book. I have read quite widely from investment books and this approached the topic from a novel angle. I’m sure I won’t be the only reader to have learnt a great deal.

I just wanted to say thank you for writing this book. I have always found it difficult to survey the investing landscape and perform some kind of comparative analysis of the fees/structures involved. This really helped me get a bigger picture. It has also prompted me to ask more critical questions in my dealings with my IFA.

Thank you for writing this book – and for making it freely available. I sought out your book after hearing your excellent radio interview. Now I see you’re being quoted in newspapers and ft.com. I was aware that funds don’t really return the headline figures that they claim, but your evidence indicates that it’s even worse than I thought.

Thanks for writing the book and good luck with your efforts to change the financial services industry. It certainly needs it.

I learnt a lot from your book and the sheer weight of the data astounded me. Thank you for writing it. I hope it gets wide circulation and that you bring out a hard copy.

I have been very impressed with the range and depth of research you have put into it. Although I have only dipped into it so far, it has been very illuminating in how difficult it is to achieve those expected gains in practice. I must also commend you for your public-spiritedness in making it available at no cost.

I also need to thank those who have pointed out issues and things that I might change in v2. If you spot others, please tell me.

Finally, thank you for the 50 odd of you who did the feedback survey so far. (Those who haven’t yet, can find it here). The results again have taken me aback. 94% of you would recommend it.